Catch a Shooting Star

By Robert Irion

Everybody loves fireworks. Colorful explosions fill the air as you lie on the grass, still stuffed from your Fourth of July barbecue. It’s a perfect way to end the holiday.

The night sky also provides its own fireworks, and you don’t have to wait until next July 4 to see them. In fact, August is the best month to see a meteor shower, one of nature’s most beautiful sky shows.

Watching a meteor shower is easy and fun. All you need are your eyes, a clear night sky, and some time.

Pebbles in Space
Most people call meteors “shooting stars.” However, stars and meteors are very different. Stars are hot, glowing masses, like our sun. But meteors are streaks of light caused by bits of debris called meteoroids that drift among the planets and finally burn up as they fall through the Earth’s atmosphere. Most of these rocky meteoroids are smaller than BBs.

As you spot meteors piercing the night, you’ll begin to appreciate meteoroids. We don’t see these tiny travelers in our solar system until their fiery deaths as glittering meteors above our planet.

Astronomers think meteoroids mainly come from comets. When a comet travels near the center of our solar system, the sun heats the comet and blows away part of its icy surface. The comet spews dust and dirt into space to form a beautiful tail.

Over time, the particles in a comet’s tail get left behind and slowly spread out into a trail of meteoroids along the comet’s path. As Earth orbits the sun, it passes through this trail at the same time every year. When that happens, debris comes raining down into Earth’s atmosphere, creating a meteor shower.

Sparkling Showers
Earth plows into the meteoroids at high speeds—usually about 140,000 miles per hour. That’s more than two thousand times faster than a car on the highway.

At such speeds, it’s no wonder the chunks burn up when they crash into Earth’s atmosphere. Most of them flash into view for less than a second, burning up completely about sixty miles above the ground.

The faintest meteors come from small bits the size of sand grains. A pea-sized pebble makes a streak as bright as the brightest star.

Once in a while, Earth runs into a piece of debris as big as a golf ball. If you’re lucky enough to be there, you'll see a fireball- —a brilliant torch across the sky that outshines the full moon.

The Perseid Meteors
Every August, as the Earth orbits the sun, it collides with rocks and dust cast off by Comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbited near-est the sun in 1862 and 1992.The resulting meteors are called Perseids (PER-see-ids), named for the constellation Perseus. Perseus is located in the part of the sky where most of these meteors appear to come from.

You can see Perseids from late July through mid-August. However, the best night to view them is August 12, when Earth hits the thickest debris. During that night, you might see one or two meteors zip across the sky every minute!

To enjoy these celestial fireworks, just follow these simple tips:
First, don’t use binoculars or a telescope because they let you see only a small section of the sky. To glimpse meteors, you want the widest view you can get. Your own eyes are all you’ll need to see many meteors.

Second, try to find a place beyond city lights where the sky is dark. You can see a few meteors from a city, but only the brightest ones. If possible, avoid trees and buildings that block your view.

Next, get comfortable. Lie on a blanket or bring a lounge chair, and dress warmly. Give your eyes about thirty minutes to adjust to the darkness.

Then, just stare upward, not in any particular direction. You’ll react quickly if you see a meteor off to the side.

Finally, be patient. You might not see any meteors for a while, then you might catch a few in a row.

The later your parents will let you stay up, the better. There are always more meteors after midnight than before.

The reason is that, after midnight, the Earth has turned so that the side you are on is plowing directly into the meteoroids. You will see more meteors during this time for the same reason that a car driving through a snowstorm gets more snow on its windshield than on its rear window.

That’s it! Now you’re ready to watch one of astronomy’s most beautiful wonders: the dying embers of a comet’s journey through our solar system. Just for fun, you might make a wish on one of those “shooting stars.”

Major Meteor Showers
The Perseids are the most popular meteors each year, but you can see meteor showers at other times as well. Here are some of the best.

Shower	Parent Comet	Best Dates	Most Meteors per Hour
Quadrantids	Unknown	January 3 - 4	110
Lyrids	Comet 1861 I	April 21 - 22	12
Eta Aquarids	Halley	May 4 - 6	20
Delta Aquarids	Unknown	July 27 -29	35
Perseids	Swuft-Tuttle	August 12 - 13	68
Orionids	Halley	October 21 - 22	30
Taurids	Encke	November 7 - 8	12
Leonids	Temple-Tuttle	November 16 - 18	10
Geminids	Phaethon (asteroid)	December 13 - 15	58